End of Part One

On Saturday we managed to get to the final day of the ‘People at War’ photographic exhibition which has been touring Nepal with its haunting and frequently distressing photographs of the last ten years of conflict. When we reached the calm of the Patan Palace museum garden we had time to reflect on the selection, arrangement and captions of the photographs, which presented a powerful anti-Maoist, pro-government portrait. Hmm.
Patan Palace, in the midst of the spectacular buildings of Patan Durbar Square, has been beautifully restored and is now an excellent museum of Hindu and Buddhist religious art and artefacts. An excellent introduction to the many incarnations of the Hindu gods! The photographs of the square in1900 provided an insight into traditional Newari lifestyle, and apart from the destruction of some buildings in the 1934 earthquake and the invention of the motorbike, it looks remarkably similar to the way it is today.
Monday’s language proficiency test was a fairly free flowing conversation with a charming Nepali women who works as an international language trainer and assessor. Unfortunately my knowledge of grammatical structures, pronouns, postpositions, verb endings was lost in my enthusiasm to actually communicate on topics as diverse as teaching methodology in England and Ethiopia, a comparison of the status of women in England and Nepal, my response to the photographic exhibition (above), and David’s ‘habits’! Much relief when we were given feedback to find we were both in the ‘Intermediate – high’ category, “with some circumlocution to convey meaning, and evidence of some advanced structures”. There’s an end-of-term feeling, and our last task was a major shopping expedition to the market to buy ingredients for a Nepali feast that we cooked today. 20 cooks, many kilos of vegetables, lentils, paneer, chicken and rice, two gas rings and a rice cooker produced a spectacular meal by 2pm. We have a final evaluation on Sunday.

The next phase is about to begin – several of our group have already moved from the guest house into their own flats. We are ready to go and feel we have enough Nepali to find ourselves somewhere to live and meet colleagues at work. We have at last been given a departure date for Biratnagar – May 22, assuming the political situation does not change radically. Next week we will be at the annual VSO conference, and we are hoping that our new colleagues will come to Kathmandu for a briefing day on May 21. We have met several existing volunteers here this week; it’s been very useful to hear about their experiences in the more remote parts of Nepal. Our meeting with Purna (VSO Education Manager) has helped in that w have a very open brief ie to do whatever seems appropriate / possible! We look forward to the challenge! David is scrounging sturdy boxes in which to pack ‘essential items’ that he wants to buy here before we go. We’re not sure how we will get these boxes to Biratnagar, as luggage allowance is only 15kg!